Several shark encounters and sightings have been reported this week from the East Coast to the Gulf Coast.
Five incidents involving sharks or suspected sharks occurred Monday and Tuesday in New York, officials said. All victims survived.
On Fire Island, New York, a 15-year-old boy who was surfing in the early evening was bitten by a shark on his heel and toes, Suffolk County police said.
His heel and toes remained intact, and he was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
Also Monday, a 15-year-old girl suffered puncture wounds from an unknown source in the water at Robert Moses State Park in Babylon, New York, the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation said in a statement.
The girl was treated at the scene by paramedics, the agency said. The incident prompted authorities to deploy drones to patrol Robert Moses and Jones Beach state parks.
Drones captured footage of several sharks in Long Island water around 8 a.m. Tuesday. Officials said they were likely sand tiger sharks, which can grow more than 10 feet.
About 1:50 p.m. Tuesday, a 47-year-old man wading in the waters off Quogue, a Long Island town, was bitten and lacerated on his right knee, police said in a statement.
The man did not see what attacked him. Quogue police said in a statement that “the bite was from a larger marine animal.”
The beachgoers were taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries, police said. After the incident, authorities said they encouraged visitors to stay out of the water.
Minutes after that attack, a shark bit off the right hand of a man swimming off the village of Fire Island Pines on Fire Island, Suffolk County police said.
The 49-year-old man was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries, police said.
A few hours later, at Sailors Haven Beach on Fire Island, a woman believed to be in her 50s was bitten, according to Nick Clemons of the Fire Island National Seashore.
National Park Service first responders responded and Suffolk County police took her to a hospital for treatment of a minor injury, Clemons said in a statement.
Shark sightings were also reported in Florida.
On Monday, a woman recorded a video showing a shark circling in shallow, warm waters off Navarre Beach, where many who had waded into the water turned the other way and ran away.
Another video showed a hammerhead shark hovering near a paddle boarder in Surfside, a town in South Florida on the Atlantic coast.
To help reduce the chance of a shark encounter, experts say you should avoid wearing bright clothing or shiny jewelry. If a shark is sighted, “remain calm and maintain your position as quietly as possible,” according to the Florida Museum, home of the International Shark Attack File.
“Most sharks are just curious and will leave on their own,” he says.
But if they get close, they run, and if that doesn’t work, fight, experts say. The museum says to hit a shark on the nose if you have to.
Earlier this year, the Shark Attack Archive found that New York’s eight unprovoked attacks last year were an annual record for the state, which had only reported 12 attacks this year. type since 1837.
The file said juvenile sand tiger sharks are attracted to the Long Island and Fire Island areas because of their protective bays. Most of the bites on Long Island last year may have occurred when these sharks came close to shore looking for bait fish, he said.
Despite these incidents, the number of unprovoked attacks declined in 2022 to tie with 2020 for the fewest reported incidents worldwide in the last 10 years, according to the archive.
Tavleen Tarrant, Valeria Antonshchuk and Yasmeen Persaud contributed.
